The initiative is being led by NSW Trade Minister Stuart Ayres, who told The Australian Financial Review the plan was viewed as an important part of an ongoing effort to attract overseas technology giants to set up shop in Sydney and position the city as an entry point for tech firms looking to expand into Asia.

The NSW government is bringing Silicon Valley investors and fintech giants to Sydney as it fights to be a regional tech powerhouse. iStock

"We are always active in our pursuit of investment opportunities for New South Wales. We have seen a number of technology organisations such as OnDeck, Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, Facebook and Box all being engaged in New South Wales at the moment, so it is a dynamic ecosystem that is beginning to thrive," Mr Ayres said.

"We are a very strong launching pad into the Asia Pacific region, and also need to appeal to bigger businesses who could have software engineers based in Sydney running back-of-house work for a company which has its customer-facing activities in San Francisco or Hong Kong ... Sydney is an Asian city in an Asian century."

The group, which aims to raise Sydney's global standing in the tech and startup sectors announced that it would kick off a crowdfunding campaign in the next fortnight, aiming to raise up to $2 million.

Silicon Valley Bank's Andy Tsao said Australia was now on a list of countries where it wanted to investigate the possibility of investing in research and development. It doesn't invest in startups in the same way as a venture capital firm, but provides loans and corporate services.

He said he was keen to meet with local tech firms that wanted to set up operations in the US, saying that Sydney should look to thrive as a tech developer centre for companies with bases overseas, which needed high quality skills and services.

"I certainly think that Sydney can become an important regional hub. Our clients like Stripe, Prezi and SurveyMonkey have started to look at Sydney as a good test case for international expansion," Mr Tsao said.

"However Sydney is obviously in competition with cities like Singapore and, over time, other countries in South East Asia like Indonesia and Malaysia. But I think the business climate, English as a language and English law is something that gives Sydney some advantages, which it will need to take as markets with bigger populations like India and Indonesia could potentially become much larger ecosystems over time."

Mr Tsao said he would also take the opportunity of his Australian visit to fly to Melbourne to meet with members of its burgeoning tech startup scene.

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Mr Ayers said he recognised that Melbourne may object to Sydney's claim on being Australia's regional tech city, but that he was more focused on larger regional rivals.

TechSydney has been set up to try and improve the standing of Sydney in the global tech and startup sector. Supplied

"Sydney is a genuine global city, it is the strongest contributor to GDP of any city in Australia and we know we have the foundations for a really strong ecosystem to operate here and we want to continue to cultivate that.

"Melbourne will try to do the same thing and other cities in Australia will look to try and play to their advantages as well, but we need to be really clear that we compete against other global cities as we look to help big global tech businesses access the consumer-oriented markets across Asia."

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Paul Smith writes on technology specialising in enterprise IT, web, gadgets. Based in our Sydney newsroom, Paul is Technology Editor, with more than 10 years experience as a journalist, writing about all areas of technology ranging from big business successes and failures to emerging start-ups and the changing nature of gadgets and media. Connect with Paul on Twitter. Email Paul at psmith@afr.com.au